“Our timing will get blown, and there will be no way to stay on schedule if this doesn’t happen.” Brad Armstrong, President of the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, July 2003
If you go back and read through the Save Richmond archives, you’ll find a couple of theories being explored fairly consistently. First of all, Richmond is actually run by its business community, which has the power working through the city’s weak, corrupt and/or sycophantic leaders to tax, spend and monopolize all mainstream debate in River City.
Second of all, Richmond a place that is said to value its past fails to learn from history, and makes the same mistakes time and time again.
Last night’s Finance Committee meeting on the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation’s CenterStage not only continues and escalates Richmond’s most notorious taxpayer-funded boondoggle, it is an eerie reminder of the past. Have you ever seen a “done deal” up close? Consider that the public comment period on the proposal was held AFTER the councilmembers on the committee voted yes to the measure how’s that for convenient?
From this, we get a sense of the utter disregard Richmond’s City Council has for the views of the taxpayers it has been charged to serve and how the average citizen can expected to be treated when the full city council does meet to vote on this proposal, which involves millions in present and future public dollars. It all seems… very… familiar.
Over at the Richmond City Watch forum, Creativeclass looks at CenterStage and wonders what year we are stuck in 2003, 1985 or 1865. Longtime readers will recall that, in July 2003, city council went ahead and held a vote to raise the meals tax for VAPAF despite:
- The indictment a few days earlier of councilwoman Gwen Hedgepeth on bribery charges (rather than recuse herself from the vote, Hedgepeth voted “yes” to fund the Foundation’s arts center she said she was doing it “for the children”)
- The installation on the very night of the vote! of two interim council members. One of them (Robert Jones) wisely abstained from voting, saying that he had not conferred with voters on the issue. The other (Walter Kenney) wasn’t concerned with such niceties. He voted “yes” to fund VAPAF through increased consumption taxes, stating: The anticipation, as I understand it, is that some of the funds maybe at least 50% would go toward public education thats what I understand… I understand that there is another anticipation: That the counties are expected to participate. Hopefully in sort form of revenue sharing along with Hospitality industry hotels, motels and then the Federal and State government are expected to (participate) further.
- Uncertainty that there would even be a vote. VAPAF’s meals tax hike needed to be passed quickly, Mayor Rudy McCollum told the press. He was willing to hold up the vote only if the votes weren’t there to pass. Why the rush? “Our timing will get blown, and there will be no way to stay on schedule if this doesn’t happen,” VAPAF President Brad Amstrong told Richmond.com a few days before the meeting. “The economic impact is a big deal. The economic engine this creates is more than the cost of the meals tax increase. It makes sense. It’s an economic decision as well as a cultural decision. Everybody wins.” Mr. Amstrong would later tell the public he was taking a pay cut and that his excessive salary didn’t come from public money ahem! Those with long-term memories will recall that, on the day of the scheduled meeting, no one knew whether or not city council was going to take up the meals tax motion naturally it did, and it passed. Despite the uncertainty and the confusion, a record number of citizens came out to speak out against the measure; so many that the full citizen comment period had to be suspended.
If there was ever a “done deal,” clearly designed to ward off real debate and to supress citizen comment, it was witnessed the night the city council raised the meals tax on behalf of a well-heeled and secretive private entity. And despite assurances that that initial plan would hold the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation’s “feet to the fire” with proper oversight and built-in safeguards, a city auditor later determined that city council failed to adequately monitor, or even clearly define, how the Foundation could spend the city tax money they were awarded. This in addition to the discovery that the private entity did not have the fundraising dollars that it claimed to have.
$22 million dollars and one hole in the ground later, we could see first hand how the city’s “rush vote” had worked out for Richmond. Little wonder that, upon entering office, Mayor L. Douglas Wilder pointed to the former administration’s deal with the Foundation as a prime example of how “business” shouldn’t be done:
Two years ago, in an unprecedented move without adequate input from the public or adequate due diligence on the part of those heading city government, the Council and the Performing Arts Foundation passed a new tax dedicated to a private entity, and furthermore, gave that entity control over one of the most valuable pieces of land in Richmond.
This was supposedly a privately funded thing. That all you needed was a little seed money from the public. Now youll find that two-thirds of the money that will be generated, if they are counting, will be public when you count the federal, when you count the state and the city. [This occurred] without the city or any locality or any of the government officials having any say-so as to what happens. How anything like that could have gotten off the ground in the first instance is beyond me.
Make sure you remember those words when you read the Times-Dispatch’s account of last night’s meeting it’s like traveling back into time. Substitute Mayor Wilder for Mayor Rudy. Substitute Harry Black for Calvin Jamison. Substitute a confident (but hardly forthcoming) Bill Pantele for the Bill Pantele who claimed the meals tax hike would only be “temporary.” Substitute Jackie Jackson (who was the only councilmember to vote “no” in 2003) with Bruce Tyler (who has questions about costs). Substitute “paperwork snag” for internal council shakeup. Substitute “we need to do this now or our subcontractors will be unhappy” for “our timing will be blown.” Substitute “closing a loophole” for “feet to the fire.”
Mix and stir. Emphasis mine:
Panel OKs arts center plan
But paperwork snag may delay vote by full Richmond council
Thursday, Sep 06, 2007
By DAVID RESS AND WILL JONES
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Incomplete paperwork could delay Monday’s vote on an arts center in downtown Richmond - a project that one councilman complained would cost taxpayers millions more than one Mayor L. Douglas Wilder had killed.
But the City Council’s Finance Committee voted anyway to recommend the Wilder-backed plan for the $58 million Richmond CenterStage construction project.
Yesterday’s votes on two ordinances came before the session was opened for public comment - drawing a complaint from one city resident that the decision appeared to be decided without public input.
“I feel helpless at this point,” Silver Persinger told council members. “To me, it seems like a done deal.”
Earlier, a consultant for the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, which prepared the plan, said a possible delay of the council vote to Sept. 24 could lead subcontractors to back out of prices they had quoted in June.
Afterward, committee Chairwoman Ellen F. Robertson predicted the council would more than likely not vote Monday because the agreement as initially submitted lacked some supporting documents. Public-notice rules require complete proposals be available to the council and public for review.
“There’s a legality there. I think we need to make sure we close that loophole,” Robertson said after the three-hour meeting.
As she was saying that, Councilman Bruce W. Tyler said he was concerned by city administration projections, disclosed for the first time, that the arts center would cost as much as $50 million in financing costs over 20 years and up to $20 million in operating subsidies over 40 years.
That’s far higher that the $27.8 million the city promised in 2003 when it agreed to support a version of the complex that would have filled the entire block bounded by Broad, Grace, Sixth and Seventh streets.
Wilder blasted that plan as a waste of taxpayer money after private-sector backers missed fundraising deadlines. His opposition forced a scaling back.
“In the back of my mind, there’s a question whether with all that we have gone through, have we asked the citizens of Richmond for more money,” Tyler said. He said he wanted to amend the proposal agreement to limit the years the city would pay a $500,000 annual subsidy to operate the center and Landmark Theater. The 40-year contract for the project now sets no time limit.
It was a question from Tyler at the outset of the meeting that prompted City Attorney Norman Sales’ opinion that the vote might have to be delayed.
Sales’ opinion shocked backers of the project, who warned it could risk a key element - a guarantee from the main contractor that any cost overruns above $58 million would come out of its pocket.
That contract can’t be signed until the council acts, said Michele Walter, a consultant to the foundation. And that price is based on bids that subcontractors submitted in June, and those promises run out after 90 or 120 days, she said.
She said there could be a problem with subcontractors even if word of a possible delay got out.
J. Robert Mooney, vice chairman of the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, said: “I think we want to regroup. I’m optimistic we’ll have a chance to continue to present our case. It’s more of a City Council discussion than ours.”
Richmond CenterStage is scheduled to open in fall 2009, and leaders of several arts organizations told council members they need the project’s go-ahead because they’re already planning their 2009-2010 seasons.
Council President William J. Pantele said he’s hoping to be able to vote Monday and didn’t want to say who might be responsible for any increased costs.
He said his primary question about the agreement was addressed. He clarified with the administration and arts foundation that the $500,000 in city operating support for the arts center would be in lieu of - not in addition to - the more than $750,000 that taxpayers now pay annually to operate the Landmark Theater.
“I think, all in all, this is a well-put-together plan,” he said.
Right! It’s such a well-put-together plan that Mr. Pantele can’t even share the details of it with his constituents. It’s 2003 all over again. The only difference is that, this time, VAPAF rushed into construction without having council approval and are now whining about the fact that someone dared to notice.
If the past gives any clue, this council will vote Monday night and, bullied by the Foundation, will pass this thing largely unamended. No feet will be held to the fire and the rest of us will pay the costs for generations to come. It’s Richmond, after all where the business elite can do what it wants (no matter how illegal, unfair or ill-conceived) and where we consistently fail to learn from our past mistakes. The city council made this monster and have learned nothing; it’s clear to see that they intend to follow it straight off the cliff.
As for our directly elected mayor and his role in this, I think we will all stifle the urge to suppress a cough the next time he talks about bringing “accountability” and “responsibility” to our city government, and points fingers at others for waste and political patronage. Whatever year it happens to be, this boondoggle is now all his.
